constructive

Yeah, I'm sure that running an $800M hedge fund, Brown's compensation made small bank CEO compensation look like tiddly winks. Until the meltdown. The real problem isn't executive compensation. It's getting the high level of performance that you're paying for.

Nice artifact of the last bull market. Tengion is down 99%, Gazprom is down over 50%, Davis Petroleum went bankrupt and Bill Miller's career outperformance was wiped out. Based on the evidence, I think the paper far overstates the attractiveness of investing in unknown unknowables.

I like the companies like BIDU and NTES that are more mature, so you can see how good their economics are. A lot of these are earlier in development so the eventual level of profitability is more guesswork.

A single purpose fund has the potential to be more efficient than multiple small activists acting as a group. After acquisition of a large stake in a company and negotiation with management, the fund could be dissolved and the shares distributed.

Even easier, you can add ?guestLogon=true to the address: http://www.valueinvestorsclub.com/value2/Idea/ViewIdea/61190?guestLogon=true I've never looked at Axia before. The pitch is pretty persuasive. -It barely mentions the balance sheet, even though the company was trading under tangible book value with 40% of the market cap in cash. -Earnings were inconsistent but free cash flow was stronger and growing. Typical of small media/telecom companies. -The competitive dynamics of internet service in France and Singapore might strike us as unusual. France is supposedly 94% DSL with barely any cable internet service. Of course FTTH can take market share from DSL, but is there also risk of increased cable competition in any of these markets? -The minor markets, Singapore, Spain and US, potentially seem like aggressive estimates given that they are still earlier in development phase. -Low multiple (7x EBITDA) seems appropriate for Alberta since they don't own the pipe and have to negotiate rates. Slightly higher multiple seems appropriate for other networks, where they own the pipe but have to deal with minority or majority partners. Maybe the mistake was not buying it.

It's hockey - isn't every injury "expected and intended"? Insuring hockey players against injury seems like the quintessential Fairfax legacy policy. Uniquely Canadian adverse loss development. :)

But public REITs also pay quarterly distributions and shelter income with depreciation.

Can you expand on the liquidity and tax advantages? I don't follow how private REITs can be better than public REITs. Assuming Broadstone can mark property values pretty accurately, it seems that there are probably public REITs trading at greater discounts.

I bought DWCH to cover my short. Einhorn is probably making good money on the short side right now - might want to buy more GLRE.

Or maybe the Christian de Nuevilette to Kraven's Cyrano de Bergerac. :D

http://www.reuters.com/article/2014/04/09/usa-detroit-settlement-idUSL2N0N10W220140409 Under the agreement with National Public Finance Guarantee Corp., a unit of MBIA Inc., Assured Guaranty Municipal Corp. ; and Ambac Assurance Corp. approximately 74 percent of the bonds would be reinstated at their current terms, equal to $287.5 million. The remaining 26 percent would be assigned to establishing an income stabilization fund for the city's "most vulnerable retirees," according to the statement from the U.S. District Court for the Eastern District of Michigan. This is confusing to me. They got back at least 74%. What does the terms say for the remaining 26%? The ULTGO insurers agreed to a 26% haircut. With the money "saved" through the haircut, the city claims retirees are "better off". Although it's really just sleight of hand since the haircut is less than the bankruptcy plan, so this deal is somewhat negative for other creditors.

Here's a visualization of COBAF Fund vote share over time. COBAF_Fund_Vote_Share.pdf

With the C discount widening relative to BAC, the vote spread between them has narrowed considerably over the last 2 quarters. 74 : 6 12.3x 41 : 4 10.3x 87 : 20 4.4x 54 : 21 2.6x

If you look at voting trends you'll see that few people are as patient and concentrated as you are. For example BH went from 7 votes to 2, 3, and 1, despite the success of the investment in CBRL and the acquisition of an insurance company. Fairfax went from 41 votes to 19, 12 and 7 as the market marched higher. Your job is to act as a counterweight to all of our votes. :)

How does your performance record compare to Einhorn's? If you can earn 20% annual returns across the cycle without using leverage or long/short, you probably shouldn't bother.

Do you think BODY will survive 2014? It seems unusual how they went from profitability to enormous losses so quickly. Were the previous financials deceptive?

You don't know that costs are lower with one system versus another. The only way to know is to test it. If IEX's total costs are less and they take business from the other exchanges, that will be proof they have a better model. Until then it's conjecture.

Um... yes it has. You can get paid a negative rebate and/or get price improvement. If you take liquidity on EDGEA, you get paid a negative rebate of 2 cents / 100 shares. With CBSX it's more. With price improvement it can be more. This happens most frequently on highly liquid stocks with a low share price above $1, e.g. Sirius XM. It's more likely to happen when spreads are very narrow and volatility is low, e.g. not near the market open or close. It's not free if you look at all-in costs, including what the market makers are earning. Which is the whole point of the discussion, that HFT/market makers are part of the market ecosystem. If you remove them the exchange fee structure would need to be more expensive.

No. You have no right to any particular price. Taking liquidity has never been and will never be free.

IEX's plan is to discriminate against certain types of market behaviors. Let's wait for evidence on whether it is actually more efficient than the other exchanges that allow HFT. If not, they will not take much market share. (Well, unless they are less efficient but succeed in scaring people about HFT.) I will point out that Interactive Brokers has noticeably better execution than other discount brokers. If you use Ameritrade, Etrade, Scottrade, etc. maybe you should fix the big source of leakage before worrying about a tiny source.

I believe they are correct. Even if you found a broker that would sell you Reg S, I would avoid it since you could face legal trouble from the SEC/IRS. The same goes for 144 securities if you are not a qualified buyer.

I've thought about this recently - it would be pretty cool to create a market making program for thinly traded securities. It would not need to be that technologically advanced since there is less competition in small nonscalable strategies. I think it would need to incorporate some value bias (quick human screening to set the parameters for what direction and how large it can trade).

Thanks for the link. The negative comments on Gazprom were well stated. I'm a little disappointed they didn't also provide a view on Lukoil. I wonder how much of the disconnect between US and Europe gas prices can be attributed to our more speculative market for junior resource companies (US companies being willing to pursue projects with lower rates of return), versus physical constraints.

My variation on this idea is make it a subscription clothes-buying service. You would have a Netflix like queue, which would be augmented by a recommendation engine based on your size and selections. Each month the site would send you the top $100 or $200 from your queue. It could be asset light by third party sourcing instead of keeping inventory.

I find it really interesting how bubbles always spill over from the capital markets to "real life". People like bitcoin miners and mobile social app developers are the new tulip farmers. Their work is justified and enabled by popular delusions in the market.